OMG! He Shot a Snake! With a Pellet Gun! OMG!

San Francisco 49ers linebacker Patrick Willis has animal lovers and gun haters all aflutter. According to bleacherreport.com, he announced to all the world that his property is now down one reptile thanks to some quick work with a pellet rifle. Clearly, in the view of a number of commenters at his MyFace page, Mr. Willis lacks any semblance of humanity for so heartlessly killing what looks to be a 4-5 foot snake he found coiled on his patio. As someone named Auntie Clymax screeched, “So he’s proud of killing a harmless gopher snake. Yay! That just tells me he’s probably a big, cowardly pussy who beats women as well.” Q.E.D. The Niners list Patrick at a beefy 6’1″, 240 lbs., so he can probably handle himself quite nicely when it comes to on-line hostility. As for the snake, nice shootin’ there, Pat.

That kind of ignorance reflects terribly on gun owners. If you want to wantonly kill wildlife, that’s bad enough, but to go around championing it on the world wide web makes us all look like knuckle dragging cretins.

Do you always go overboard like that? Look, if the guy felt a necessity to kill the snake, I’m all right with it. Saying it “reflects terribly on all gun owners”, is just batshit crazy.

I wish he’d spared the snake, but I prefer to let it go; so should you. The world didn’t end and God didn’t strike him dead.

For anyone looking for an alternative, Gopher snakes can make good pets, and they’ll keep your home rodent-free as a thankee for you. Grab it behind the neck, put it in a pillowcase for three days (tie the pillowcase or he’ll escape), and when you let him out, he’s yours. He’ll be calm and cool as a cucumber (LITERALLY). Ed Abbey did this to one when he was a forest ranger in Arizona, and he’d wrap it around his waist, and the thing liked to go about like that – with his head poking out between the shirt buttons.

This works with blacksnakes as well, but Gopher Snakes sometimes will do a mimicry thing, trying to convince you they’re venomous. I saw one give a first-class imitation of a Sidewinder. A DEAD-ON imitation.

Hryan, I have a cheap off the rack Crossman pellet rifle. .177 caliber that shoots north of 1000 fps depending on the ammo. At backyard ranges it would have no problem taking game up to and including raccoons. It’s definately not a toy and I have no doubt that at back yard ranges it could inflict a serious, even lethal injury on a person. All for 99 bucks and no paper trail.

I’ve got a Gamo Silent Stalker that I bought for just north of $200. Does about 1300FPS. Judging by the muzzle end on the pellet gun in the pics above, I’d say he has the same one (has a fake can to channel the report, since it can actually break the sound barrier).

My brother-in-law used a similar pellet gun to shoot one of a troop of raccoons that were terrorizing my wife’s cat. It fell out of the tree and crawled around in random circles, brain-damaged but not dead. I had to go track it down and finish it off with a baseball bat.

Definitely not one of my favorite memories. You use what you got, but now that I have other options (borrowing a friend’s suppressed .22 being one), that pellet gun would’ve been my last choice.

Besides, unless it’s a verified danger, live and let live. You and Patrick Willis can do what you want, but it’s not what I’d do.

I bet my Gamo 22 cal suppressed “Bone Collector” would dispatch that critter cleanly… I’m live and let live until it’s digging up my lawn… then that suckers toast… Plus if trouble came my way, I’d much rather be talking about a pellet gun then a firearm…

Pellet guns – especially CO2 pellet-firing pistols – are ideal for snake elimination. They’re quieter than even a suppressed handgun, they’re light, and they’re cheap. The CO2 pistols generally have a decent sized rotary magazine of pellets, so you can shoot it twice, three times, or more if need be.

No. Most of us herpetologist/herpetoculturist were irritated by him acting like he was a big badass for killing a harmless gopher snake. The animals was not a threat, not dangerous and not even inside.

I’m pretty used to rural living; I’ve dealt with coons, cougar, bear, deer, elk, etc. back when I lived in CO. I’m not averse to shooting an animal that’s actually a danger or a nuisance (raccoons in the dryer vent for instance) but this really wasn’t. And then acting like you’re some mighty hunter for managing to kill a damn gopher snake is just sorta sad.

On one hand, I understand that many people who know about these sorts of things are upset because it is obviously harmless to you. To the uninformed, do they really want to rely on their knowledge of snakes to determine if it is poisonous or not (he is an NFL player after all…)? I lack knowledge of the subject, but I assume gopher snakes are not in danger of extinction? If so, while not really necessary for him to kill it, I wont judge him for doing so.

Me or the internet as a whole?
I didn’t call the guy names, or call him a wuss, or threaten him. I was just irritated, particularly at the macho posing after killing a tiny animal. It isn’t like I strung up the rat I trapped and killed and acted like the great white hunter.

That said, I feed animals ranging from pigs and turkeys down to newborn mice to my snakes and probably directly cause the death of several thousand animals a year to feed them, plus the animals I eat and wear. so I can’t work up a lot of moral outrage over simply killing an animal.

A gopher snake? Probably not. The biggest animal I ever fed to a gopher was a medium sized lab rat and that was a big meal for it. They could possibly eat newborn pups of a small breed I guess, like if you’re breeding Pomeranians or something…

Right on, Chris. It’s like when some yuppie in LA gets eaten by a mountain lion while cluelessly wandering the hills without giving a thought to the dangers, and then every cop within 100 miles shows up with an AR-15 (with a 30-rd mag) and they blow the poor beast to smithereens for going after an easy meal.

These people view hunting as cruel and backwater, but heaven forbid a coyote or black bear strolls through their backyard…they’ll bring in the National Guard.

I have to come down slightly on the side of the snake lovers. If Patrick is a rural Tennessee boy then he knows what venemous snakes looks like and surely knew that this one was harmless to humans.

A friend of mine hates the black snakes that visit her yard to go after the baby birds that she loves to watch. She is well armed but she doesn’t shoot them. She asks her husband (or me if I am there) to pick them up, put in them in a box and take them to a park near her house.

My personal policy on wildlife is that if it’s not a threat to humans, domestic animals or something I would eat it gets to live.

I’m well aware of the ecological benefits of snakes and appreciate their role, but if one finds its way onto my back porch I’m gonna send the little critter back to it’s Creator. I won’t feel happy about it, but I’ll take care of business.

This guy really did nothing abnormal or uncalled for. I don’t understand the outrage.

I guess I’d have to question *why* you feel the need to kill one that’s simply on your back porch (assuming it isn’t a venomous one). What is it about seeing one that makes you want to kill it? Do you shoot every squirrel or bird on your porch? It’s a mindset I don’t get (unless you’re just really fond of eating snakes, and then go for it I guess).

To be honest, I’m really not all that fond of snakes, or the possibility of one getting in my house. I like them…at a distance. A dislike of snakes is a deep-seated evolutionary fear, or so I’ve read. I guess it’s irrational if the snake is positively identified as non-venomous and maaaaaybe I’d find a way to get the bugger to move along without harm, but I can’t make any promises.

If I go into a snake’s den I expect to get bit…if one comes into mine, I’ll bite it, metaphorically speaking.

If it was an endangered or threatened species I would give a call to the Turtle Man and have him take the snake to a new home.

San Fran, pretty sure animals have more righs than people.
I am suprised hes not in jail. As a rule i try not to kill predators because they keep the rodents at bay. Often, however, the females in the house demand i kill suspected threats so that they do not return. A 4.5 foot snake seems like a threat to small pets, so sorry but Mr Snake would probably have to meet Mrs. Crossman.

When I lived in SF, my neighbors called the City asking them for advice or help in removing from their porch area a pigeon nest with eggs in it. The City responded the policy is that it is illegal for them to touch it if their are eggs or newly born pigeons in the nest.

Those of you that were born with the knowledge of Herpetology and the gift of discerning a poisonous snake vs a non poisonous snake are awesome. You can let the next one go. This is where reality sucks for you…it’s a big snake, it’s in his yard…it dies. Sorry. Get over it.

Got it…I am studying up. Tonight. We all should be armed with this KNOWLEDGE to save the next harmless snake that wanders into our yards. What other INFORMATION do you suggest we laymen have in order to preempt the untimely death of an unwanted creature?

Snakes will strike at you and cause a good bleed whether they are poisonous or not. Yeah, I think he should have let it live… but the comments from the “animal lovers” are really scary.

When these people say they love animals more than people, they aren’t joking. This registered with me a couple years ago after I had a few spooky conversations with a vegan co-worker. Some of “those people” really do hate human beings to the point that they wold rather watch you die than any animal. They are a subset of real sociopaths.

Who cares? Why even post the pics of your epic snake kill. People are so quick to take pictures and post everything they do everyday. Nobody cares what you had for dinner, or the snake you killed with a pellet gun. Post the video of you catching it with your bare hands after you poke it with a stick a few times. I might like to see that, lol.